There is a phrase that comes from the silent amidah, the silent standing prayer at the core of our worship service on Shabbat that has become something of a mantra for me as I seek to navigate Shabbat each week.
That phrase is found on page 49 of our Lev Shalem siddur, second line of the last paragraph—you don’t need to look right now—and in the Hebrew it is “r’tzeh vi’mnuchateinu,” translated in our siddur as “embrace our rest.”
Embrace is a perfectly reasonable translation of the word “r’tzeh” and yet it elides the context in which the word r’tzeh was used, that context of course being the ancient sacrificial system. When our ancestors wanted to get close to God, to feel close to God, whether it was for purposes of expressing gratitude, or yearning for nourishment, or feeling a sense of guilt and wanting to make peace, they brought a sacrifice, a korban, a moment where they could feel close with, reconciled with, feel the divine protection of, the Holy One.
And it wasn’t always a quid pro quo exchange, it wasn’t always, “hey God, I’m in need of something; I need something from you so here is this poor goat to facilitate the exchange;” on a daily basis a representative of the Israelite community, in the form of the priests, would essentially open up the lines of communication. Recognizing the divinity inherent in the universe; recognizing God at the center of life as they knew it, they saw the sacrificial system as the modest way they expressed their connection to that source of life, their desire to serve adonai, to serve the source of all being, however they were called to do so. People brought the best of their herds, flocks or produce in an effort to express “there but for the grace of God go I.” I do not do it all alone. I am not only for myself. I am a part of something bigger, and may this be a small token of my recognition of my love for being a small part of this ever flowing life force. And they would say something like “rtze v’minchateinu.” Find favor in our offerings. This token of our gratitude, our dependence, our blessings—find favor in it, God. I hope that You can discern the kavanah, the intention, the heart that I am trying to conjure in myself as I deliver it, yearning to connect to you.
Of course, we no longer have the sacrificial system. Ever since the destruction of the temple nearly 2000 years ago in 70 CE the project of Judaism has been about constructing a new mode of worship, a new mode of connecting to and serving God, in the absence of the biblically mandated sacrificial system.
The mitzvot, the vast system of minute rituals that feel endemic to Judaism, lighting candles on Shabbat, sprinkling salt on the challah, washing our hands before a meal and saying a blessing, these features of shabbat, for instance, are a transformation of the ancient sacrificial system, into a system imagining that our korbanot, our offerings, can take place at the kitchen or dining room table, rather than the ancient altar.
The phrase rtzeh vimnuchateinu, embrace, or rather, find favor in, our rest, takes the notion of that particular feature of our shabbat experience—our rest—and says, may our rest—the way we approach it, the way we carry it out—be a pleasing offering to You, Adonai, Source of being. May my rest be a bridge to you.
To me, this is the guiding north star of how we might approach shabbat. If our organizing principle for Shabbat is not halakhah—that is, if it is not the system of laws developed by the rabbis over the centuries, resulting in Shabbat prohibitions on, for example, carrying objects from place to place, cooking, using electricity, writing or making art—if we are trying to craft a shabbat practice with a sense of kavanah, of intentionality, grounded in the Jewish spirit, but not bound to particular determinations made over the centuries that feel too challenging and perhaps not resonating to the way we live our lives today, I would offer this notion of r’tzeh vimnuchateinu—find favor in our rest, as a guiding force.
What might that look like?
Inherent in the notion of r’tze vimnuchatenu, is that God wants us to rest. The word menuchah, rest, doesn’t show up very often in the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible, but it does show up in one prominent place of the Jewish experience:
Adonai makes me lie down in green pastures; leads me to still waters.
Still waters. Water in places of rest, repose. Mei menuchot. Still, restful waters. These words which are selected to give a sense of calm and comfort to a person experiencing grief and loss; these words come from Psalm 23 which is traditionally sung at Jewish funerals and Yizkor (memorial) services.
R’tze vimnuchatenitu. Find favor, God, in my offering of rest—a rest that seeks to embody those still waters—a restfulness of my soul; that is my offering on this one day a week.
Though my week may be stormy, tumultuous, there is shabbat, a calm, serene pool in the midst of the rest of our lives.
How do we foster an environment on Shabbat in that spirit? How can we approach our moments on shabbat with presence, of being present to the moment, sensing the gift within them? R’tzeh vimnuchateinu, find favor in our rest is based on a Jewish understanding that God wants us to rest, wants us to experience that state of serenity, however we can foster that, even if but for a day. And so our offering is our following through on that mutual desire, meeting God in those moments of rest in the same way the ancient offering, the ancient korban/sacrifice, was that meeting point.
For me it’s when my girls are playing together, even after an exhausting week of taking care of them, putting down what I’m doing to savor the moment. Or it’s giving myself permission, for one day, not to read the news, knowing I’ll have six other days that week to take in that fire hose of information. Or it’s spending the time, when I’m not here in the synagogue, with my wife in ways that are just trying to be present. Or it’s savoring joy and frivolity, not worrying about “is this exercise going to enrich me in some way in terms of my future?” Shabbat isn’t for the sake of the week; the week is for the sake of Shabbat, as Heschel would say. Not wondering, will my activities today enhance my ability to perform the rest of the week, but rather am I aware of having been created in the image of God, and isn’t that enough if only for this one day each week?
R’tzeh vimnuchateinu—find favor in this rest, O holy one, you who wants me to be at peace.
I’m not saying this is easy: I write this teaching as much to lay out an aspirational marker for myself—someone always trying to do and to be more, more, more—I write this teaching as much to lay out an aspirational marker for myself, as I do to preach something I am already practicing to perfection. I am not. But I do sense that we are called, on Shabbat, to transform our time into an offering of rest. To recognize that a Jewish conception of God is that all God wants from us in these moments is for us to be at peace, to experience shalom. A Shabbat Shalom.
